Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz dies at 26

Aaron Swartz, an internet genius who helped deliver new web content to users by co-developing Reddit and RSS before later becoming a digital activist, has taken his own life, aged 26.

A spokeswoman for New York’s chief medical examiner says Swartz was pronounced dead late on Friday in the city’s Brooklyn borough.

At the time of his death, Swartz, who had gone on to press for free public access to web content, was just weeks away from being put on trial on accusations of stealing millions of scientific and literary journal articles from the subscription-only JSTOR service.